Middle school students writing a book about bullying

Michael learns how to be abusive from watching how his dad treats his mom. Lucina never learned to be a bully, but since she's privileged, why shouldn't she lord it over those who are not?

The two pre-teens have little in common except for their ages, their obnoxious behavior, and the fact each is the figment of the collective imagination of a group of about 50 middle schoolers collaborating on a book called "I Was a Bully … But I Stopped."

The book, a work in progress, is on a fast track to be printed next month, in time to be distributed throughout Broward County's elementary schools as part of the school district's anti-bullying program. It will also be available online.

"Bullying really hurts everybody in school, and it takes everybody to stop it," said local author Bob Knotts, who conceived of the book and, as founder of the Dania Beach-based Humanity Project, developed the free workshop producing it.

After the book is distributed in Broward, Knotts said he intends to offer it to the Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade school districts.

Broward County was the first school district in Florida to develop an anti-bullying program; the rest of the state's districts following suit by the end of 2008. The school year that ended in June was marked by two high-profile incidents that raised awareness of bullying, both at Deerfield Beach Middle School.

In October, seventh-grader Michael Brewer skipped school for fear of being confronted by a schoolmate who had allegedly tried to steal a bicycle belonging to Brewer's father. That schoolmate and two others are accused of assaulting Brewer off campus and lighting him on fire. Brewer survived.

Then, in March, Deerfield Middle eighth-grader Josie Lou Ratley was violently attacked at a campus bus stop by Wayne Treacy, a Deerfield Beach High School student who accused her of insulting his dead brother in a text message earlier in the day. Treacy, 15, sent threatening messages to Ratley and to other friends, but apparently no one, including Ratley, took them seriously enough to report them.

Treacy has been charged with attempted murder.

The Ratley beating prompted the district to more vigorously promote its Silence Hurts program, an anonymous way students can report bullying and threats of violence. The district's anonymous tip line is 754-321-0911.

Knotts said he has two goals with the Humanity Project workshop — to provide an academic exercise for children "at-risk" of low achievement or failure in the school system, and to engage them in bullying prevention.

He didn't compel the students to talk in front of the class about whether they had personal experience with bullying. "I expect some elements of all their experiences will end up in their finished stories," he said.

"I used to be bullied a lot," said Elizabeth Dash, 12, of Hallandale Beach. "It's because I carried a book with me wherever I go. I love to read."

Working on the book, Dash said, is giving her and other students in the workshop at Olsen Middle School in Dania Beach a chance to get inside the heads of bullies. The students came up with the back story for their central characters: Michael Rose and Lucina, whose last name hasn't been decided (and may not be).

Michael is a 12-year-old dyslexic boy of interracial heritage (his dad is black, his mom Asian) who bullies because it's all he knows how to do. Lucina is a white girl from a wealthy family but whose parents recently divorced.

Once the characters were developed, the students were sent into groups to work on their stories. Each group was free to create a victim and to figure out a realistic way for the bully to change before the story's end.

With a bully as the main character and reform the turning point of the story, the students learn to focus on changing the causes of bullying rather than just reciting the effects. The bully, through the process of change, becomes almost as sympathetic as the victim.

"I can relate to Michael a little bit," said Dash. "But only a little bit. I don't think he wants to be a bully. I actually think it's because of what he's going through."

And allowing the students to create the victims provides insight into how it feels to be bullied.

One group of girls imagined Michael terrorizing a small, freckled boy with a squeaky voice, demanding the boy's lunch money.

"It happens more to people that look weak," said Nickhayla Meikle, 11, of Hollywood. Her group plans to stop Michael's bullying by introducing a female peer to teach him the error of his ways.

"It's awful that people bully people just because it looks like they can't fight back for themselves," she said. "Sometimes if it gets out of hand, I'll go and tell an adult."

Other groups may choose to have the victim fight back, to have an adult intervene, or to turn the tables by making Michael the victim of a bigger bully.

In Dash's group, the target of Michael's bullying has a protector. How that person figures into the ending is still being worked out, she said.

Knotts said he's eager to see what happens in each of the stories, which are due at the end of July. Knotts will then take elements from each of the stories and blend them into two tales: one about Michael, one about Lucina.

The finished product, Knotts said, will be published through a State Farm grant.

"This is a really good class," Dash said. "It's not just teaching me about bullies. It's helping me be a writer, and that's what I want to do."